Announcing our first work exchange Artist-in-Residence

We are delighted to welcome playwright and author Gareth Fox to Greywood Arts!

Gareth will be helping us prep the house for renovations while working on new short stories.

Here’s a little about him, in his own words:

I was born in Craigavon, County Armagh, on a very harsh, cold November evening, or maybe it was a morning or afternoon – I have no idea. I’ve never asked. Anyway, yes, I am from Northern Ireland. I studied English at Manchester Metropolitan University and after I graduated I fled to Montpellier in the South of France. What an absolutely horrible place to seek intellectual refuge, yeah? And, oddly enough, that is where I had the ill fortune of running into Hughie and Jess.

I spent four and a half years there, struggling to acquire the language and also struggling to find my feet as a writer. After a few years I finally made a small impression with my first stage play, For Use Of The Laity, which ran in Montpellier and Avignon. I have recently turned to fiction writing with publications in Liberties Flash Fiction – Ireland and The Incubator.

For me, the opportunity to join the Greywood Arts team hascome at a very significant time.
It is no secret that the biggest struggle for young writers is finding the time to write/rewrite/edit/redraft around work commitments – those work commitments which pay rent and put food on the table. There will always be those who state that if you want to be an artist you will always find time to create your art – I think we all know what that is.

I was asked recently, after venting spleen to a friend for a few minutes about these very struggles, what would be my ideal job? I answered, “I would like to spend my days power-hosing things. Anything. Barns, houses, walls of things which have walls.” When asked why I explained two reasons. One is that my mind would be free to amble and exploit the difficulties I was having with my fiction in order to be able to attack it that evening (I would not be mentally fatigued). The second reason; I could see, physically, what my exertions have created; when power-hosing there is a clear vision of what is dirty and what has been cleaned/improved. Here, at Greywood Arts, I have that opportunity in abundance – the exertion of physical energy (like a “dauntless chieftain from days of yore”), seeing the rewards of this labour and also the time to focus on my own art) and in such a beautiful location.

And dauntless Gareth has been in attacking the dining room with a hammer drill. He’s removed about 4 inches of plaster all around in preparation for dry lining!

In the coming months you will hear more from Gareth on this blog, on facebook, and on our soon-to-be twitter account that he has offered to set up for us. Yipeee!